Path of a Ninja
by Hazy Red Cloud
Summary: What if a ninja from feudal Japan was reincarnated into the Naruto world? How would she react when she sees ninjas acting so unlike the ninjas she is familiar with? OC insert.
1. Chapter 1

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 1**

I was born in the 1590s, to a minor family in the province of Iga. It was during the Sengoku period. Unrest plagued the country and ninja clans had begun forming earlier in the century. I don't know whether I am lucky or not to be trained as a kunoichi for that was all I knew. It might be considered an abuse of human rights, but honestly? Compared to the alternatives, being a ninja wasn't that bad a deal when you are not from a noble family. Better than being a common prostitute, ruffian or thug at least. Training in stealth, unarmed combat, weapons use, espionage and many more began at the age of 5. We had to undergo a regime of torture training to prevent rival clans like the Koga – those _bastards_ – from obtaining information from us. We completed gruesome physical training in the roughest weather to mold our bodies into the perfect killing machine. We were forced to kill as soon as possible, starting with non-direct methods like poisoning someone's tea, to slowly acclimatize ourselves to it.

As a kunoichi, I was taught to seduce men and women both. To lure them into the thralls of pleasure to give me the opening to either obtain information from them (bedside talk was surprisingly informative) or kill them. People tend to let down their guard so much when they are coupling, especially so with an attractive woman.

Weapons use was varied, allowing us to use all weapons with at least some proficiency. My favourites were the kunai which was a multi-tool used as a projectile, close combat knife or as footholds to climb up castle walls, the crossbow which let me kill or incapacitate from a distance and the ninja wire which let me set traps, garrote someone or sling from one building to another. Of course there were others I loved to use as well but these were the most useful in my humble opinion.

This, however, did not mean we neglected to train our bodies in the art of killing. We mostly used grapples and locks as these allowed us to keep the enemy at extreme close range so they have no chance to escape or swing a sword. We also used a lot of knife-hand and spear-hand strikes as, when trained correctly, this allowed the force generated to spread over a lesser area compared to a fist and thus, concentrated all the force into a single area. These methods also allowed us to kill easily and incapacitate them either painfully or otherwise.

Surprisingly, we hardly had to use our combat skills outside of training. Most of our kills are struck when the victim least expected it, at a speed they can't comprehend. Even trained samurai with refined combat instincts often fall prey to our stealth for one main reason.

We lacked _intent._

Or rather, we trained our minds to control our intent so much that there is no hint of it, killing intent or otherwise, to warn our prey before we strike. We trained by meditating to control our mind and body and put those into practice by stalking directly behind prey animals for hours on end, prey animals that had such great survival instincts needed to survive predators who were stronger and faster than them. These by no means mean that we are weak. Ninjas believe in contingencies above all else. The more the better. In case we could not take down our target in one hit, we could still hold our own against the great warriors of the era.

For all my training and success as a ninja, I could not beat the greatest enemy of all. Time. That which breaks down the strongest of bodies, that which erodes the mind into being just a degraded organ inside our skulls, that which wears down on the most determined will until finally, you stare into the abyss that is Death's eyes and welcome it for the freedom from the physical manifestation of your soul on the earthly plain.

And yet. Just when I expected to finally enjoy my retirement from Earth, I felt my body being squeezed on all sides. My body felt like it was underwater. No, not underwater but rather a liquid far more thick and viscous then water. For some reason I could not begin to feel my limbs, I could not see, taste or hear anything. I just felt this weighty presence all around me.

Yet, for all that I should be struggling to free myself, to understand what was going on, I did not do so. For what I felt all around me was a subtle yet strong feeling of love and comfort and I rested in the knowledge that I was safe.

As time passed, with no sense of how many days it has been, I began to feel more of my senses and while I still could not see anything, I began to hear some things. I heard the gushing sound like that of a flowing stream, the sound of wind entering a valley and the thumping sound of some musical instrument following a rhythm. On occasion, I heard soft voices outside my comfortable prison. I tried to roll about, trying to make some noise so my would-be rescuers could hear me. This caused the voices to rise slightly in excitement but my hope was in vain for the voices would eventually leave. At this point in time, I had begun my meditation exercise in earnest, trying to remain in control of my emotions. While I could not sit down or anything to meditate, I merely followed the rhythmic trance of the musical instrument to slip into a state of pensive thought. It was only a while later that I reached an epiphany. The sound of the flowing stream was moving blood. The sound of wind was the sound of someone inhaling and exhaling was the sound of someone breathing. And the sound of rhythmic beating that I was meditating to was the sound of heartbeats. I was a baby! At this realization, I wanted to bark out in laughter. Was Kami playing a trick on me? Or was this a second chance in life? It was pretty ridiculous to imagine being back in the past in my old body, so it was far more likely I had reincarnated into a new body.

Figuring out that I had been reincarnated was a shock, but with my training over my emotions, the idea of it was quickly dealt with. Unfortunately, this left me with absolute boredom and nothing to occupy my mind with. I decided that there was nothing to do but meditate until I was born.

After meditating for a long while, I found something in my body that was not there in my first life. A network of what can only be described of as life energy flowed throughout my body. I was amazed at it. It flowed through pathways slowly but smoothly, and as time passed, the pathways grew bigger. It was only a miniscule difference, but as I had nothing better to do but observe it, I could literally see it expanding as the energy flowing through it grew more and more abundant. I tentatively reached out with my mind, trying to control it. And failed miserably. I decided on doing things slowly. I tried to alter the rate at which the energy flowed, increasing and decreasing it. As I played around with it, I slowly increased my ability to manipulate it slightly. I found that by channeling it to my ears, I could hear the sound of my mother's heartbeat much louder and thus I formed a hypothesis – that this energy could be channeled to various parts of the body to improve their function. There wasn't much I could do, trapped as I was in my mother's womb, and so I killed time by meditating, playing with this new and interesting energy and playing imaginary shogi matches with myself to keep my brain sharp.

Eventually, I felt increasing contractions where the walls of the womb were squeezing against me and I realized that I was to be born soon. I knew this from when I was disguised as a midwife's assistant – now that was an interesting story, but it was for another time. Anyway, as soon as I felt my body being squeezed downwards, I went with the flow. Unfortunately, I suddenly found something around my neck, choking me with a vice grip like that of a python. I thrashed around in fear. I wasn't going to be dying again after waiting all this time, without even seeing the outside world this time. I struggled, trying to pull it off me but I was too weak. I was soon floating in and out of consciousness when I suddenly remembered the new energy I had in my body. Anxiously channeling it to my upper limbs, I grabbed the tube from around my neck and spread it open, just wide enough for my head to squeeze out. As I felt it in my grip, I realized it was an umbilical cord. Fuck, that would be a stupid way to die. I can just imagine my comrades laughing at me if they ever found out I missed out on a second life because I got strangled by an umbilical cord of all things.

As I exited the womb in relief, I opened my eyes. Unfortunately, the overhead light was way too bright for me and I screamed in shock while simultaneously closing my eyes. After such a long period of isolation in my mother's womb, the outside world was just so much _more_. It was so much louder, with so many new scents and it was just so much more alive. I felt someone pick me up, wiping me dry – thank Kami for that - and carry me to someone. As I felt someone rocking me, I opened my eyes carefully, and through my new vision, I saw a blurry image of a woman's face. Her face was riddled with sweat; her black hair was sticking to the sides of her face in a mess and her eyes were exhausted, but she still mustered up the strength to give me a tired grin. I somehow knew this would be one of the most precious memories in my life. Her mouth opened.

"Musume, I am your kaa-san. And I promise to love you forever…Nara Midori."


	2. Chapter 2

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 2**

Nara…Nara…Nara… I had never heard of a Nara clan before throughout my tenure as a ninja in my previous life. Either they were a recently formed clan which made my lack of knowledge about them understandable or the process that reincarnated me took longer than expected which meant I am further in the future than I expected. Were the Iga clan even still around? If I went there, would it still look the same as ever? Or would it have been destroyed by the ravages of time? As I contemplated these thoughts, I was being carried around in a cloth inside a building filled with people in white coats and various outfits. From the brief voices that I overheard, this seemed to be a hospital in a place called Konoha. I had never heard of this place before so it supported my belief that I was so far ahead in the future that even the names of places in Japan had changed.

I had apparently reached my destination because the person carrying me, who I assumed was a nurse stopped to enter a room and placed me on a baby's bed. A woman in a white coat arrived and, after speaking to the nurse in a hushed tone, walked towards me while reading some papers on a small wooden board. She approached me, her hand glowing with a green aura. I tried to roll away. No way was I going to let someone come near me with the energy that was similar to what I felt in my body. For all I know, she could be some assassin or something. Unfortunately, my valiant attempt at rolling away was curtailed by the wooden bars surrounding my bed. _Screw you bars, one day I shall have my revenge!_ My attempts to glare at the bar into oblivion were ceased by the woman who rolled me over to face her. As she placed her glowing hand on my belly, I managed to get a glimpse of her coat on which was written 'DOCTOR HITOMI'. So she was a doctor, maybe she was here to give me a checkup or something. I felt the energy in her hand travel through my body. At first my energy was resisting it, but I felt it slowly get overwhelmed when her hand glowed an even brighter green. I saw her eyes widen in surprise as she took away her glowing hand and scribbled something on her papers.

Soon after that, I was brought to another room, filled with other babies, and laid into a bed with those accursed bars surrounding them. I know it was for the babies' safety but the bars just irritated me for some reason. I guess it was because it was a physical representation of my lack of power and freedom, my lack of ability to do what I want.

With nothing to do, I stewed in my thoughts. I decided to address the elephant in the room. I had thought that I was the only one with the energy inside me, possibly because of my reincarnation, but the doctor had showed me through her use of it that it was something that was not unique to me. This pointed to the likelihood that either people in Japan has somehow figured out how to use this energy or, considering I never had this energy in my past life even when I went into deep meditation, I was in a different world. This was so outlandish that my brain just didn't want to comprehend it, but my gut said I was right. I guess there was nothing I could do but observe. Either way I simply had to act like a child would. The answer wouldn't really make all that much of a difference anyway.

 *****BREAK*****

It is official. I am definitely going to be a laughingstock if my former comrades saw me. The huge pale thing called a breast hung in front of my face and I groaned. How did I survive breast feeding the previous time? Oh yeah, my brain probably hadn't developed enough yet to remember. Okay, Midori, close your eyes and don't think about anything. Oh Kami, this is so weird. I counted numbers in my head to try and ignore what was going on in my mouth. And it's finally over! Phew, that was tough, far more difficult than slitting someone's throat.

Then I realized this would not be the last time I will be breastfed.

"NOOOOOOO!" I wailed. Of course what came out instead was milk dribbling down my mouth. I am a failure. Me, a trained kunoichi, turning into this quivering, pitiful lump of a human being was horrifying.

This reincarnation thing sure wasn't going as great as I thought it would be.

 *****BREAK*****

It has been a tough few months but finally the horrors of breast feeding was over. It shall never be mentioned again, though in the recesses of my mind, it will always be lurking there ready to haunt me in my nightmares, I just know it. In the few months I have been in this world, I figured out a few things. First, my name was Midori because as one of my many relatives commented, I have "lovely, moss green eyes". Seriously did my parents not have any imagination whatsoever? I also found out that my mother was called Nara Hikari and my father was called Nara Takashi. Both were somehow able to use the energy that I sensed to move their shadows about and my mother was also able to cause her hand to light up in a green aura like the doctor. I concluded that my mother had at least some medical training. I also realized that my entire clan was extremely lazy - to the point that they would sleep for more than 12 hours a day if they could. On the flipside, they were also extremely intelligent. I had seen some relatives come over to my house and play shogi with my mother and father and they played incredibly well. One of them who outshone the rest was Nara Shikaku, who was my mother's older brother.

Other than that, I mostly meditated, practiced my motor abilities by clenching and unclenching my fists et cetera and playing with my energy. Oh yes, I finally had a name to call this energy. One of my relatives mentioned it while talking to my mother. Chakra. What a strange name, but I guess it was fitting considering how strange this energy was. I channeled it not just through the circuits but also to my sensory organs and muscles. At first it made little difference, but as I continued practicing it over and over again, I noticed the difference between my natural senses and my enhanced senses started to increase. Not at a fast rate mind you. In fact it increased extremely slowly, but the increase was there and so I continued practicing. I also tried to channel it to my shadows like I had seen my relative do but there was little success in that regard.

Another interesting thing I found out, or rather, deduced was that my parents were ninjas. They used the standard kunai and shuriken while my father had a 45 cm wakizashi strapped to his side when he left the house. I figured my mother must have been given maternity leave to look after me while my father continued working. They didn't put any of the weapons within reach of me of course, but I could see it when they took them out to sharpen or to gear up. Both my parents and most of my relatives wore a headband somewhere on them with a spiraled leaf in the center of the plating. I figured this was the symbol for Konoha that my parents were serving as ninjas for.

 *****BREAK*****

It's been about 10 months since I have been born and I finally decided it was time to speak. "Ka-kaa-chan…" I mumbled when she was rocking me in her arms. I can't believe it but she totally freaked out. She carried me and brought me to my father to show off. For supposed adults, they can be incredibly childish at times. After so long taking care of me (especially in the womb), it was only right that I called her first rather than my father.

My mother had begun reading to me various books which had given me the opportunity to subtly question her about this new world. Apparently, we were on a continent called the Elemental Nations and it was made up of different lands and hidden villages. Konoha was a major village and was in the Land of Fire. The other major hidden villages are Suna, Kiri, Iwa and Kumo. There were various other minor villages all around the continent too like Yukigakure no Sato and Kusagakure no Sato. She also told me a little about chakra, how it was made up of physical yang energy and spiritual yin energy. She said it was possible to use it to perform techniques that shinobi used to complete their missions.

My father, on the other hand, took over the position of teaching me the all-important Nara strategy game – Shogi. Sure it may not be a game that the clan created but to us, it was apparently more important than even combat. Nara clan members were surprisingly competitive when playing it. It is one of those things that just get our blood boiling, trying to outwit the other player, especially when they were as smart as you. I had to pretend to not know how to play initially, though I believe my father caught on to that. However, he put it off as me learning it from watching him play all the time when I was still a baby. After all, what was the alternative?

By the time I had achieved enough strength and balance to walk, I could barely help myself from going everywhere in the house. It was just so freeing, the sense of being able to move about on your own two feet. Going around the house showed me the differences between their technology and that of feudal japan. Everything seemed much more complicated than before. They used electricity to power machines. I was bewildered by the fact that they managed to harness the power of lightning for such mundane activities like washing clothes. Until my mother oh-so-kindly disabused me of that notion. To find out that mankind has achieved such great progress that they can generate electricity and use it to power machines to make our lives easier was amazing.

During my third year, in this reality, I had grown used to the comforts and way of life the people here had. The relaxed pace of life probably contributed to the slight childish behavior I allowed myself. I had missed out on it in my first life, and I saw no reason not to enjoy my second. Shikaku-oji and Yoshino-oba had just had a baby this year and I played with him constantly. I knew I would become a ninja eventually. Children from ninja clans typically joined at around 6 years of age and trained there until they were 12 before becoming a genin when they graduated. Of course there were exceptions who graduated earlier than expected and were typically labelled as geniuses. Regardless, it was on a hot evening during October while we were at a park playground when it happened. The event that would give me the conviction to be a superb ninja rather than a sub-par one by not using the skills of my previous life.

 _Malice._ There was no other word to describe it but pure malice. It hit us all like a wave of burning air, screaming at us to do nothing but _RUN!_ The emergency alarm bells were wailing and everybody was screaming and panicking. My father grabbed me and along with my mother, shunshin to Yoshino-oba's house. My mother left to the hospital as per protocol while Yoshino-oba would look after baby Shika and me since she was still on sick leave from giving birth to Shikamaru. Tou-san and Shikaku-oji was going to report to the hokage's tower to get deployed. As my father adjusted his wakizashi and tools pouches, he looked at me and I saw in his eyes a hint of fear for what they would be facing. He knelt down, took my face in his hands and looked me straight in the eyes, "Ri-chan, tou-san might not be back from this. If so, look after your mother, and look after yourself…train hard and make me proud. Take care." With this, he closed his eyes and kissed my forehead. I could feel splashes of tears streaking down my eyes when he said this. For this reminded me of the fact that while I have been staying comfortably in the shelter of my home, this world had just as much, if not more, dangers than my previous world.

 *****BREAK*****

"Sorry."

My mother was at my side, her face in her cupped hands as she sobbed quietly.

"He wanted you to have this."

Shikaku-oji slid it over to me, causing a red streak to form on the table's surface.

"Take it."

My heart felt cold and numb. Yet, holding on to the red-stained handle of his wakizashi sent the warmth from his still fresh blood into my body, kindling the embers of determination in my heart.

I promise. I promise to take care of myself and mother. I promise to become the greatest ninja I can be. It is time…for me to once again walk the arduous path of a shinobi.

All it took was my father's death, and a burning Konoha.


	3. Chapter 3

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 3**

Flickers of green appeared in small bursts on my palm. With a flop, the fish ceased moving entirely and I knew it was dead. I am currently 7 years old and my mother finally allowed me to start learning medical jutsu under her tutelage. Why would a ninja want to learn this you may ask? I simply found its usage undeniable. If I was ever injured out in the field or anything like that, being able to heal myself is an undeniable benefit. For the past four years, I had begun training myself, following the training method of my past life while at the same time learning some chakra techniques that would benefit me. I had honed my stealth and awareness capabilities – hiding my scent, sound and intent while stalking people and animals – practiced with throwing weapons, ninja wire, tanto usage and unarmed combat, or as they called it here taijutsu. I dearly wanted to start using my father's wakizashi, but it was still too long for me to use effectively and would be more of a hindrance in the future if I cultivated bad habits with it.

I also focused on physical abilities, on flexibility, speed and agility. These three were, in my opinion the holy trinity of which a ninja, especially a kunoichi, should focus their physical training on. The combination of flexibility and agility, coupled with my training to notice presences and sense intents, would allow me to theoretically dodge most attacks even if the attacker was faster than me. Speed would allow me to either escape a superior opponent quickly or allow me to make a stealth attack so much more effective since they would not have the time to react. Strength is greatly overrated. Not only was it not as necessary, it is also much harder to develop strength at a young age. Sure, being able to destroy an entire building in one punch like Tsunade-sama would be pretty cool, but a sharp knife could be as easily used to kill someone. After all, all the strength in the world would be useless if you cannot hit your target

I had also begun immunizing myself to various poisons. My mother allowed me to go to the Yamanaka clan greenhouse to purchase various plants. They also owned a florist shop along one of the main streets in the Business District but that was mainly for harmless plants that were just for decorations so that civilians could purchase. The greenhouse stocked lethal plants that could be harvested and distilled into poisons and toxins. I begged my mother to purchase a wide variety to plant in our garden and with her help and medical expertise; I could safely start immunizing myself by getting myself used to lower concentrations of poisons. I had so far only achieved partial immunity from a few poisons.

Chakra training was a totally new experience for me. Luckily, my family had a small library that contained manuals, books and scrolls on various subjects from strategy to calligraphy. I began by mastering the chakra exercises I found there like the tree walking and water walking exercise. I then began to come up with my own by sticking various items to parts of my body while doing the chakra control exercises. To me, gaining a mastery of my chakra is vital. After all, going on a mission with just a weapon that you have not learnt to use properly is just idiocy at its finest – a sure way to get yourself killed. I had quickly managed to learn the bunshin, kawarimi and henge techniques with my high level of chakra control and it was then that I started on some more unique ninjutsu. From my studies I knew that each person had certain types of elemental affinities but I decided not to restrict myself to my own and instead started out with learning some of my parents techniques. It would be foolish to rely on only one affinity and die just because an opponent has a superior one. Besides, each element had unique supplementary techniques that were useful for a number of different situations. The more of them I can use, the more options I have in future engagements. I managed to learn my father's Mud Clone technique, Hiding like a Mole technique and my mother's Water Clone technique. After a long time of practicing these jutsus, I had successfully reduced the number of handsigns required for me to use them to one. There were quite a few offensive ninjutsu in the library but to me, they were not as necessary to learn as those supplementary jutsu which would help set up an opponent to get a blind spot and trap them for a kill. Besides, offensive jutsus were more often than not overrated. Sure, they had their uses, but 80% of the time, they were just not as useful. Besides, the trained ninja in me just _strongly_ disliked the use of these exceedingly flashy jutsus. They just didn't suit my style.

Shikaku-oji had also begun training me in the clan arts. I was only recently starting to get the hang of the Kagemane technique, and even then I could not yet split up my shadow into more than 1 tendril. The basis for Nara clan techniques worked by infusing yin chakra into your shadow and then cycling it back into your body. Normally since shadow is just an absence of light in a certain area, we would not be able to channel chakra into it. This is where the usage of yin chakra came into play. Basically, since yin chakra is the representation of our mind, of our soul and of our thoughts, by meditating and slowly forcing ourselves to believe it, we can do so. Rather than rely on the limits of the physical realm, yin chakra is channeled to our shadows through intent. This gradually causes our chakra to take on a 'tinge' of shadow and allows us to use our techniques to influence shadows in turn. This also partially explains why I see so many of my clan members being so lazy. By learning clan techniques at a young age and not practicing other techniques that also include greater usage of yang chakra, their chakra naturally becomes more yin-aligned. The deficiency in yang chakra that governs physical prowess is probably a factor in them being so lazy.

Though most clan children started out in the academy at 6 to 7 years old, I decided to wait for another year before applying to join. A prodigy called Itachi, of the Uchiha clan, had supposedly graduated at the age of 7 after only one year in the academy and had recently made Chunin at the age of 10. As long as I am a student at the academy, I can take the final year exam which would let me become a Genin. This meant that, theoretically, I could train to a suitable level before entering the academy and quickly becoming a Genin at the end of the year. Unlike with other students though, this possesses far less risk for me as I am already very much aware of supplementary arts that would help with my occupation as a ninja like flower arrangement and tea ceremonies. Unfortunately the maximum age for joining the academy is 8. I believe that it is so because, should the children who join be older, they would be more resilient to the subtle influences that make them more suitable to be loyal killers for Konoha. After all, hardly anyone with a civilian mindset would willingly do the acts we commit as ninja. They probably also indoctrinate them into the mindset needed as a Konoha ninja. Not that it is a bad thing since this would simply make us more loyal which is necessary to a hidden village. This however meant that I had no choice but to join the academy the next year. Once there however, I would have to lower my skills enough so that no one will know of my true skill set. After all, I am not naïve enough to believe that other villages have no spies in Konoha. Letting possible enemies know my skillset would only benefit them. For a hidden village, one of the easiest accessed and still valued information would be information on students since this would let them prepare for future threats. I am pretty sure other villages already had a dossier on Itachi Uchiha and are already prepared to take him out considering no one made attempts to hide his prodigious skill. Should anyone wonder why I graduated after only a year, it could be attributed to luck as long as I maintained average grades throughout the year.

This meant that I only had 1 year to fully concentrate on my skills without alerting anyone. During the academy year, my training time would be cut down. Of course, I could make use of the image people have of Nara ninjas and simply sleep in class to rest my body and mind while training outside class. Hmm, maybe even substituting a mud clone in on dreary days might be possible. I will have to balance the benefits against the risk of getting caught…this requires further contemplation.

Once again, I took out a dying fish from the crate beside me, plopped it on the wooden table in front of me and concentrated on resuscitating it.

 *****BREAK*****

"Checkmate." I said as I moved my bishop diagonally to the left.

"Ugh, troublesome." A dark haired boy slumped away from the shogi board, his hand covering his face as his head lay on the wooden panels of the floor.

"Shikamaru…you lost because you are too impatient," Shikaku-Oji said from his position beside the board.

"Honestly, Shika-chan, you are smart, you can probably beat me at this in a few years' time. Just…don't become too reliant on Shogi tactics in combat you know, they aren't that reliable." I grinned at the boy who was pouting at me with a petulant glare because of me adding a chan suffix to his name.

"What do you even mean?"

"Hmm, information uncertainty, terrain conditions, morale and human behavior are just a few factors that affect the outcome of a battle. You might be still too young to understand but, never believe a battle won and always have contingency plans because I can guarantee you, the tide of victory can always be changed." I answered.

"Ri-nee, you're so troublesome…I don't want to think about this kind of complicated stuff. Why can't I just grow up to be an average old man who spends the day playing shogi and watching the clouds roll by?"

"Seriously, Shika-chan, at least try to be motivated once in a while. Considering all three clan heirs for the Nara, Akimichi and Yamanaka clans are in the same year, you realise you will be part of the new Ino-Shika-Cho team. Do you want Ino's or Chouji's death to be your fault?" Shikamaru turned away, but I could already see the gears in his head turning as he contemplated my words.

"Enough about this, are you ready for the academy tomorrow Midori-chan?" I turned back to face my uncle.

"Of course. This will just be a drag."

 *****BREAK*****

Muta Aburame slowly looked around the classroom. The people surrounding him were his classmates – have been his classmates for the last 6 years – but he knew that out of these many classmates, statistics showed that 37% would never become anything more than Career Genin or dropouts, 40% may eventually become Chunin and only 23% would become Jonin. And this didn't even include the fact that more than 30% of them are going to be dead or permanently injured within the next 10 years. Seeing the numerous joyous and excited faces around him, he wanted to sigh in exasperation. How could these idiots not know what they are getting into? Most of them, especially the civilian born were harshly underprepared for the vicious world outside the village walls. He would sigh, but he is an Aburame, and an Aburame must always have control of their emotions. He stared ahead, his tinted goggles glinting as he awaited the arrival of the Chunin instructor to give out team positions.

His attention was interrupted when one of his kikaichu flew into the hole on his neck that connected to the hive on his body. He directed his focus inwards to contact the queen of his hive while he maintained his outward façade, giving no indication that anything was out of place.

Yes?

 _Unknown. Female. Young. 120 degrees to the right. 8 metres._

Acknowledged. Status.

 _Strong chakra. Likely non-hostile. Unnoticed._

This gave him pause. Out of such a large group of potential ninjas, someone had infiltrated them and nobody noticed? Not including the non-clan shinobi, this class included a Hyuuga, two Inuzuka, an Uchiha and an Akimichi, plus several other minor clan members. How could someone just appear here? Especially since the Hyuuga was on her right! Even he would not notice without the information his kikaichu gave him. Furthermore, with such strong chakra that his kikaichu had decided to make mention of, it should send a signal to every sensor in this classroom, yet none had sensed her. This spoke volumes about her chakra control. Considering he had arrived first to get a good look at the behavior of his classmates, the fact that he had not noticed her entering was… _terrifying._

He discretely turned around, beginning a conversation with the civilian boy with a scarred nose behind him while trying to remain as normal as possible. He observed her out of his peripheral vision. She was a petite thing, about 9 to 10 years of age, looking into a scroll that had the front covered in black wrapping paper so he could not read the title. She had half her face covered by the scroll, but with the black hair that she had braided and reached to just below her shoulders, and her slanted eyes and high cheekbones, she had the classical look of a Nara clan member. She had armguards around her forearms that were hard to spot since they were under long sleeves, black fingerless gloves and a grey tunic with no visible weapons or protection. Just as he was about to end his investigation and turn back around, her eyes snapped upwards, looking at him. Her deep green eyes that seemed so unnatural on a Nara seemed to read every move that his body make, and even though he was not looking directly into her eyes, he knew that she knew that he was observing her. He could just imagine a devilish smirk hidden behind the scroll.

He turned back around. The classroom was the same as before. No one else had taken notice of what had transpired and it seemed like everything that happened was a mere fiction of his imagination.

 _How terrifying._

And he agreed wholeheartedly, swallowing a lump in his throat that he didn't know was there, glad for the high collar that his standard Aburame uniform let him hide behind.

 *****BREAK*****

Tokuma Hyuuga knew that he was one of the better ninjas of his generation. He had a level head, was calm and meticulous. Yet it was only after spotting Aburame Muta take a discreet glance at his left did he realise that there was a kunoichi sitting right there. How did he not notice her? He was close to freaking out. This was like one of those ghost movies that his sister liked to scare him with when he was younger.

He didn't know whether he should talk to her or not considering she was currently reading a scroll and he didn't want to disturb her. Normally, he was considered quite sociable, but the fact that she was a total unknown, coupled with her strange ability to appear without him noticing, frankly scared him. He was a Hyuuga, a branch one sure, but his eyes even without using the byakugan were exceptionally sharp, for her to be able to hide her presence from him… _scary._

He closed his eyes before putting his head on his desk facing away from her, pretending to be asleep while he discretely flashed on his byakugan. Spotting his target, he concentrated further. Her chakra circulatory system was normal, but very little chakra was flowing around. In fact most of it was coiling into a sphere around her centre. It roiled and shifted as if it wanted to expand outwards but she seemed to be actively preventing it. How she did that was just making him draw up a blank.

Suddenly, he noticed it flashing outwards and back into a sphere form with specific intervals. It took him a while before he realized it was morse code. His jaw wanted to drop by now. How was she even doing this? It took him slightly longer to make out the short message, and after that he had to fight down a blush at getting caught.

 _Satisfied?_

 *****BREAK*****

I wanted to laugh, I really wanted to. Messing with the Aburame and Hyuuga was pretty funny. Those two though, they had the most potential out of the entire class. Sure I wasn't doing my best to conceal my presence and even helped by releasing a minute amount of chakra to let the Aburame's kikaichu taste rather than squashing them, but even then, the fact that they had eventually noticed me and took steps to gather information showed that they had great potential.

The Chunin instructor finally walked in with a sheet of paper in his hand. "Good afternoon class, today is the day all of you become ninja of Konoha. Congratulations! This year, we also have an early graduate, Midori Nara, who will be in one of your teams." I looked on in satisfaction as the other students looked around and finally noticed me. I waved happily at them before zoning out.

"…Team 3 will be Muta Aburame, Tokuma Hyuuga and Midori Nara…"

I turned to look at the two who looked at me and grinned wolfishly at them while they simultaneously gulped.

This is going to be oh so fun.


	4. Chapter 4

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 4**

Raido Namiashi looked down at the three brats he was assigned. Considering he specialized in assassination with his expertise in kenjutsu and genjutsu, he didn't like that he received a genin team. Most of the time, assassination training and missions began for those who were chunin. Apparently, he is supposed to train them in stealth, infiltration and as a front-line scouting team. A front-line scouting team was one of the most dangerous positions to be in, which made him hate the fact that he was assigned this team even more. The team has to go deep into enemy territory, without much prior information and if discovered, they have little choices. Reinforcements would never reach them in time so either they manage to fight off their enemies, hide and wait it out or run from them at the same time leading them away from Konoha so Konoha would not be blamed. This meant they needed to have extreme speed, stealth, sensing ability and fighting capability. Training a bunch of brats to meet that criteria would be ridiculously difficult. Sometimes, he really wished he had listened to Aoba and Genma and stayed a tokubetsu jounin rather than take the test to become jounin. As a tokubetsu jounin, he wouldn't have to deal with this crap.

He had spent the last two weeks following the three around – with the help of some shadow clones of course – and gathering information about them. Muta Aburame, as all Aburame were trained to be, was a very logical thinker and highly adept at making well thought out plans. He used a variation of the Academy style taijutsu, though he added in much more evasive maneuvers in. It seems like he recognized his fighting style as a mid to long range combatant, with more potential as a support unit and took steps to improve his chances of survival out in the field. Raido approved of this. However, as all Aburame were, he seemed too inflexible in his thought process. If anything happened that surprised him greatly, he cannot change his plans fast enough, resulting in him hesitating, which an enemy can take advantage of. He also knew a few insect based ninjutsu on top of his repertoire of skills.

Tokuma Hyuuga, on the other hand, has one of the best byakugan of his generation. He could see a greater distance than normal for his age, about 500m. He had even cut down the number of handseals required to activate it from 12 seals to 8. With greater practice and chakra control, he would probably be able to activate it without using handseals by the time he is twenty. His taijutsu style was that of the normal gentle fist used by the Hyuuga. Considering he is a branch house member, regardless of his talent, he will not be able to learn the Hyuuga's secret arts like the Heavenly Rotation unless he figured it out himself. Character wise, he seemed calm and was kind and gracious, which is pretty weird for a Hyuuga, but he wasn't arguing. After all, it is much better than having a usual Hyuuga with a stick up his rectum.

Now, Midori Nara was the one he couldn't figure out. She graduated at 9, 3 years younger than the other two on the team and was in the academy for only a year. Her academy teachers were surprised she had passed considering she mostly slept in class and they believed it was a fluke. Even her graded assessments were usually in the middle of the class. She didn't even really talk to anyone in her class except for Izumo Kamizuki and Kotetsu Hagane. The academy teachers had already planned to put the three of them together since they seemed like they would work well together when they graduate. Unfortunately, Midori just had to mess up their plans by graduating early.

Yet despite the fact that she is supposedly an average academy student who passed based on luck, she had spotted him immediately when he began following her. This was surprising since she had no chakra sensing ability that he knew of and he had been using all his stealth to stalk her. Considering he was an assassin and made his living by killing people before they knew he was there, her ability to spot him was astounding, especially since her two teammates who came from tracking clans couldn't spot him until he deliberately lowered his level of stealth gradually in the second week of surveillance. He had wanted to follow her when she went to train to see where her abilities lay but she had confronted him. When he showed the official documentation by the Hokage that was prove he was going to be their jounin teacher, she made the argument that he wasn't considered their sensei yet so she was not obliged to let him follow her to the training grounds. Considering he didn't want to make a scene when he would know her abilities soon enough, he allowed her to leave. That however, proved to him that she was stronger and more knowledgeable than what the academy teachers thought. How much better though is the question.

"Congrats kids, you have passed the Academy exam, unfortunately, now its time for your genin test!"

 *****BREAK*****

I stared at my two supposed teammates. The jounin had already left after passing to us a scroll and instructing us to open it. After using his byakugan and deeming it save, Tokuma opened the scroll and passed it to me since I was the shortest and all of us could read it at the same time if I was the one holding it and they huddled around me.

 _Mission Type: Assassination_

 _Objective: Suna Merchant Fuka Daishi_

 _Time Limit: 1 week_

 _Characteristics: Light brown hair, black eyes, tan skin, face type 3a, 5 feet 7 inches, spokes a pipe_

 _Others: Known to have 2 bodyguards. Unknown if shinobi-trained. Have arrived in Konoha last week for purchase of wood._

After reading and memorizing it, I incinerated the scroll with a small fire jutsu usually used for lighting a fire during camping. Doing so is merely protocol to ensure that no information about the mission falls into enemy hands should we fail so neither Tokuma or Muta protested.

"He wants us to assassinate someone for a test? This is crazy." Tokuma remarked.

Muta just stared at him, using a finger to adjust his goggles. "Hyuuga-san, it is likely this is a simulation mission to test how well we do. It is likely the merchants and bodyguards are just clones."

I agreed, "This seems to test how well we manage to spy and obtain information. Considering that our sensei has been following us for the past two weeks to test our observation and sensory abilities, it is likely we are intended to be an infiltration and scouting team."

"Agreed, Nara-san."

"Mah mah, just call me Midori. If we are going to be teammates, you don't need to be so formal."

"Agreed. Then you may call me Muta as well, Midori-san." The stoic face shook up and down as he nodded.

Tokuma stared at us as we conversed. It seemed like he wanted to say something but he just sighed. "Well, you two should call me Tokuma as well. Let's just get on with this. How do we go about killing this guy?"

I smirked. Now it's time to get the show on the road.

 *****BREAK*****

I hid in the shadows, pulling up my hood and crouched under the stairwell. I glanced out and spotted the target with two men looming behind him. They looked like civilians but they could easily be hired ninja disguised so they can enter Konoha. They did not move like ninja, but that meant nothing since a ninja trained in the art of disguises would also train his body to mimic a civilian. After all, disguising yourself as a civilian but moving around with great efficiency and killing potential still signals to everyone that you are a ninja.

We had been tailing them for 4 days. They mostly went to the marketplace before going to an inn. Sometimes they would go to the hotsprings or even to the red light district in the evening. Tokuma had used his byakugan and confirmed that they had the same chakra signature, meaning that they were all the same person. After discussing and weighing the pros and cons of each location as a kill site, we decided that tonight, I would be sneaking into the inn, with Muta and Tokuma outside as back up.

 *****BREAK*****

Under the cover of night, with a mottled black cloak that covered me, I surveyed the inn with my two teammates. We had checked it out the days before and quickly realized our target's room was not a window room so entering from that avenue was impossible. At first we had decided to disguise ourselves and enter through the front door, but this is a 24-hour inn which meant the front door would be watched over even at night. Realising this, we decided to enter through the window of a different room and enter our target's room from the hallway.

"So have you found it yet?" I asked Tokuma as I adjusted the earpiece in my ear. All three of us had earpieces courtesy of the Aburame clan. This will allow us to communicate with each other during our mock missions. "And Muta-san, get some of your insects on me, if we can't successfully assassinate them, maybe we can tag them.

"It is done."

"Yes. Enter through the second floor, third window from the right, the room is empty. Leave the room and go to the adjacent room. That is our target's room. One bodyguard is awake in the room; the other is sleeping in the room to its left."

"OK, Deer going in." I used a makeshift grappling hook made out of a long rope and a kunai to let me climb to the second floor window. I did not want to use chakra since I didn't want to risk the guard being a sensor. I pulled myself up the rope and used a lock pick to pick open the window lock. I oiled the sides of the window before gently lifting it up to prevent any sounds. Creeping through the window, I surveyed the room to ensure that Tokuma was right. "All clear. Proceeding in."

I took out a kunai from my pouch and lightly stepped across the room on the balls of my feet. This was nothing compared to my past life where I had to creep across a nightingale's floor. Those were cruel. One step too heavy and the whole room would know you are there. I walked over to the sleeping guard's room first and opened the door. I had to eliminate the guard first so in case anything goes wrong, we will have one less pursuer on our metaphorical tails. I quickly covered his mouth while simultaneously slashing his throat in a V-pattern to ensure he died instantly rather than choking on his own blood to a slow agonizing death. The moment I did that, he turned into smoke. Since we already deduced they were clones, I wasn't surprised. I creeped out of his room and just as I was about to open the door to the target's room, Tokuma's voice came out.

"Shit, get out of there! You crossed a fuinjutsu boundary, the chakra in the symbols are increasing quickly. Even if I had enough time, I don't think I would be able to block the chakra in the symbols with juuken. Get out!"

"Damn it…I can't move, it must be some kind of paralyzing seal or something. Muta can your kikaichu suck out the chakra from the symbols?"

"Yes, but it will take too long. They would have included an alarm system there and I will need at least five minutes to drain the chakra." Muta sounded frustrated.

"I can see the guard coming, I am moving in. Muta, hurry in!"

As I saw the door knob turn, I quickly molded some suiton chakra in my mouth. Using that, I shaped and amplified the saliva in my mouth, increasing their quantity at the same time. As the door open, I spat out the hardened water bullet at the bodyguard stepping out. Considering he was at the doorway, he couldn't dodge to either side so he flipped backwards, letting the water bullet fly over his head. Luckily this meant that I had managed to buy enough time for Tokuma and Muta to reach me. Tokuma immediately rushed forward and sent a series of palm strikes at the bodyguard. Muta on the other hand stood in front of me in a defensive position while mentally directing his kikaichu swarm to drain the fuinjutsu words of their chakra. As I felt the hold the chakra had on me began to lessen, I felt Intent from above.

"Muta, there's another enemy, up top!"

Raising his kunai up, he just managed to deflect a strike from the bodyguard. They must have had an extra bodyguard trailing them to protect from the shadows so that they could surprise anybody looking to ambush them. What surprised me though was that Tokuma could not spot him with his byakugan. This meant that he must have suppressed his chakra extremely thoroughly. Muta began blocking sword strikes from the bodyguard while Tokuma was still inside the room trying to strike the other bodyguard with even one palm, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, I spotted the target creeping behind Tokuma with a knife ready to stab him. I knew Tokuma could see him but he could not do anything about it as the bodyguard suddenly unleashed a flurry of blows upon him. My lower body was still paralyzed but my upper body was mobile. I took out a poisoned kunai and aimed. I could not afford to make a non-lethal shot so I had decided to use a poisoned kunai. I threw the instrument of death forward but just as it was about to enter the head of the target, the bodyguard used his hand to block it and he dispelled instead. As smoke filled the room, I quickly helped Muta in combating the other bodyguard. As soon as we killed him, I turned and saw Tokuma with his hands stretched out and his palm on the heart of our target.

The target quickly turned into smoke and with a flurry of leaves, our sensei is there before us. He looked serious, with his arms crossed in front of him. He closed his eyes and sighed, "Well, considering the level of teamwork and your individual capabilities…I guess you guys are the new Team 3!"


	5. Chapter 5

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 5**

Nara Shikaku was in his office. He had just come back from a meeting with the Hokage and the possible Jounin-senseis for the year. He was glad that Team Raidou had passed. His niece had not been home for the last few days so it was likely Raidou's genin test was probably not a simple one. He had used his position as Jounin commander to convince the Hokage, in a private meeting of course, that Midori should be under Raidou's command to form the specific squad. He knew that she was already stronger than most genin in a one on one fight but with her stealth abilities, she could probably take out some chunin even at her young age. He knew the chunin instructors at the academy probably thought that her pass was a fluke, but he knew that she could ace the tests if she wanted. The least he could do was to put her onto a team that suited her. It was troublesome, but he was interested in her capabilities.

He had not confronted her about her reasons for hiding her skill level in training but he could understand it to a certain extend. Nara clan members have always achieved low marks in examinations so as to be underestimated. An opponent underestimating you could make the difference between life and death out in the field or even at home. As Jounin commander, he knew all too well how many infiltrators or potential traitors there were in Konoha. By hiding your abilities, people might let down their guard when facing you. The question though, is not why she hides her skills, but rather how skilled she truly is.

From her physique, her various habits, attire and chakra size he could deduce some key points. She had trained hard physically, much more so then other kunoichi and even some shinobi who just left the academy, and it was mainly focused on speed and agility. Her reaction time was also extremely fast and her awareness levels are top-notch. From her attire, one normally would not think of her as a kunoichi since she lacked even the basic hip or thigh pouch for holding weaponry. However, he knew that she had commissioned a pair of armguards from the Nara clan armoury that had storage seals on them. They would let her hold sufficient projectile weapons and were thin enough to hide under her long sleeved shirt. He also knew that the grey tunic she regularly wore had mesh wires inlaid within it. He knew her fingerless gloves had tiny pockets that could store senbons and things like smoke pellets just like the rest of her attire. Considering it was not sold elsewhere in Konoha, it was likely she had sewn on those tiny almost invisible pockets herself. Knowing her, it was likely she had other weaponry hidden on her person as well. Considering he no longer saw his brother-in-law's wakizashi on display at his sister's house, it was likely Midori also had it, though where she hid it on her person he didn't know. She sure took paranoia to a whole new level.

 *****BREAK*****

Two figures clashed in the training field. One is flowing with precision, palms lashing out with the blue hints of chakra colouring it slightly. The other, smaller figure dodged constantly using the most efficient movements possible, moving out of way of the deadly palms by less than a hairs breadth. The smaller figure is slowly backed towards a cluster of tree while the other continued positioning his hands to reduce any possible escape routes and positioned his opponent into a less than ideal spot . As her back hit the tree, Midori lashed upwards with a kunai while strengthening it with chakra, giving her some space and stabbing into the tree above her head. Continuing in a smooth maneuver, she pulled herself up and struck out with a simultaneous double kick at her opponent's eyes, aiming to take out his most valuable weapon.

Tokuma barely dodged the attack by stumbling backwards. In the short moment he needed to regain his balance, Midori had thrown a kunai with wire trailing behind it. The wire wrapped around his right ankle as the kunai spun around his leg. Before he could cut the wire or remove it, his leg was suddenly pulled forward and up. As his body trailed upwards, he saw Midori dropping out of the top branch with the other end of the wire. When he was finally stationary, and hanging upside down from the tree, the cold, sharp edge of a kunai was pressed against his throat, close enough for him to feel it but not close enough to draw blood.

"Enough, great job you two! Tokuma, you have to work on getting better at recovering from something unexpected happening and Midori, good job with the use of your surroundings to help you but you still need to work on your pure taijutsu." Raido commented. In truth, Midori was ridiculously strong and he would likely recommend her to ANBU after she became chunin for a while. For her age and her genin rank, she was unfairly strong, especially considering she just beat a Hyuuga with just taijutsu and weapons. Even now, 6 months after they have been a team, she still amazed him. She had extreme control over her larger than average reserves, was extremely good at using a variety of weapons, from senbon and kunai, to tantos and wakizashi, had mastered a moderate amount of supplementary and medical ninjutsu and was learning genjutsu from him at the same time. Yet despite all this, it was her unreal stealth, trapping skills and wit that were her strongest weapons. Sure Muta and Tokuma were strong in their own right, especially after being influenced by Midori, but he knew that Midori would one day be exceptional.

With 3 C-rank missions under their belt and numerous D-rank ones, Team 3 is doing great. Raidou had spent a lot of time training them in not just the combative ninja arts but also the more subtle ones, like tactics, stealth, disguises et cetera. He was preparing to teach his team some leadership skills so he is going to hand over the reins to one of them for an entire C-rank mission while he stayed back, ready to intervene if necessary. While a fresh genin team would not be tested like that usually, he believed his team was mature and capable enough to handle it, especially since all of them have already experienced their first kill.

"Sensei, it's time for Muta and me to spar!" Tokuma's voice drifted over. Raidou looked over to see Midori already sitting with her legs crossed on the pond, meditating in silence as she simultaneously used her chakra to rotate a short twig on her forehead. He turned back to face the two boys.

"Hajime!"

 *****BREAK*****

As I meditated on the pond, I slowed my chakra flow in my body to a minimum level. I am in the process of further refining my chakra control which is why I am also practicing spinning the twig on my forehead at the same time. To me, practicing chakra control is one of the most efficient combat multiplier. It not only slowly increased your reserves, it increased ones ability to control ninjutsu, use genjutsu and medical techniques and also improved the amount of chakra you can use to reinforce your body. Furthermore, an improvement in chakra control allows you to mask it better and reduce the chances of chakra sensors sensing you. Meanwhile, I opened my sense to my surroundings, feeling my sensei standing by and observing my two teammates sparring.

It has been six months since my graduation from the academy and I am extremely satisfied with my entire team. Both Tokuma and Muta are strong in their own right. Tokuma is a pretty straightforward person. He is quite smart and usually takes fights into close range and overwhelms opponents with his Jyuken. He is rather fast, especially with chakra reinforcement, and extremely good at positioning the enemy for a knockout. He is faster than both Muta and I especially when closing in, but I am still more agile than him. After suffering his Jyuken strikes during our first few spars, I suggested to him to use senbons similar to the ones I used and see if he could transform his Jyuken strikes into a long range attack to give himself more versatility. So far, he can hit a stationary target pretty accurately but he is still having trouble with moving targets and making the chakra flow in the needle imitate a Jyuken strike.

Muta on the other hand prefers not to engage in close combat if possible, preferring to use stealth and his insects to fight from afar. He is also intelligent and can make good strategies, tough most of the time they are not very creative. Sensei introduced to him the use of a pair of tonfas so as to aid his close combat capabilities. He has only started the beginner katas for the use of tonfas but he shows promise and improves every day.

My abilities have also improved greatly as I gain experience fighting more people. I use my free time to continue my ninjutsu studies at home, while sensei helped me to improve my kenjutsu and genjutsu abilities. Beforehand, I never really put much effort into a specific kenjutsu style, preferring to be able to use as many weapons as possible with proficiency. Now that I have gained mastery over most short and throwing weapons, along with ninja wire, I can concentrate more on improving my fighting capabilities with my father's wakizashi. At the same time with my high chakra control, sensei has also been aiding me in learning of genjutsu. I have also been helping out my mother at the hospital for half a day every three days to try and improve my knowledge of iryojutsu. While I never intend to become a medic as that will prevent me from fighting at the frontlines, learning to heal myself and my teammates can save our lives in the future. I also want to further my proficiency in the use of chakra scapels since they have a lot of potential. Not only is it useful in case I have no more weapons in the field (as unlikely as that is), it can help bypass tough defenses like the rock armour jutsu that Iwa used a lot in the last war and can help cause a death by 'natural' circumstances. I have probably broken some medic nin code just by thinking of using one of their techniques as a weapon but what they don't know won't kill them.

We have gone on 3 C rank missions thus far. While other genins might want to go on as many C rank missions as possible, we decided to place more priority on our training since this will help us prepare for unexpected circumstances that may crop up. So far all the C rank missions we have gone on are all escort missions and we have been attacked by bandits twice, allowing both my teammates to get their first kills. Even though it was not my first time, it is still so for this lifetime and it saddened me slightly that my life of bloodshed is to resume once more.

"Midori, come back," I heard sensei shout at me. I opened my eyes to see Tokuma looking rather exhausted while Muta's right arm looked disabled. I water walked over to them smirking as Tokuma stumbled down into a sitting position.

"Alright, training for today is over so go home and get a good night's rest because we will be going on a C rank mission tomorrow. However, this time we will do things differently. I will choose the mission tomorrow and then I will hang back and only interfere if you three need me to. I want you to choose a team leader for the entire of the mission." The moment he said this, I sighed as the other two looked pointedly at me.

"Shouldn't Muta do it since he is the oldest?" I protested. It was not that I could not do it but rather because I want to further see how my teammates act in such a capacity.

"Logically you should do it since you are the sneakiest and smartest of us. It is illogical for either Tokuma or I to take lead since we acknowledge your abilities are above us in the tactical department. Furthermore, with the jounin commander as your uncle…"

"Troublesome…fine, I will do it," I cut Muta off before he could continue, "See you guys tomorrow at the mission office."


	6. Chapter 6

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 6**

"Huff…huff…" I continued running, feet thumping against the hard ground in rhythmic beats as I breathed in and out steadily. I ignored the sweat droplets slowly dripping down my face as I enjoyed the view of the rising sun. It shone down in gentle yellow and orange rays amidst the cool shadows of the Hashirama trees. I have been running in the forest surrounding the Nara clan grounds without the use of chakra for almost an hour now. I did not over train, but rather used the run to warm up my body and clear my mind in anticipation of the later mission.

As I eventually came to a halt outside my house, I slowly walked around, breathing in the still slightly crisp air. With a soft exhale, I began to stretch in place, enjoying the slight burn in my legs.

After entering the silent house, my mother still asleep from a late night at the hospital last night, I took off my clothes before taking a quick shower. Coming out of the restroom, I put on my armguards and the various leather and metal plated holsters around my body. I sheathed my wakizashi behind my back with its handle at the top of my back, and then placed the two tanto lying horizontally along my back and finally, a combat knife and a brace of senbon around each of my lower leg. I put on a wooden ring on my thumb and index finger on each hand. They are merely wooden circlets on which I had carved miniature storage seals on the inside. I have stored different things I believe I may require, from a large number of homemade exploding notes to a crossbow and its bolts. While I may not be an expert on sealing, it is too useful a subject to not learn and so I learnt to make most common seals like storage seals and reinforcement seals that I then applied to all my weapons and tools. Dressing in my usual long sleeve grey shirt, I braided my hair around a spiked chain such that anybody who tried to grab on to it would immediately regret their action. I wore my long black pants before wearing my sandals and heading out to the mission office. I did not bother to bring anything else with me since I will be back soon enough to pack whatever items required for the specific mission.

 *****BREAK*****

"Good Morning Sensei, Muta, Tokuma. You guys had breakfast yet?" I asked as I took a bite out of the red bean bun I bought on my way to the mission office. I am pretty excited since it has been a long time since I have led a mission – a lifetime ago in fact.

Tokuma looked at me before replying, "Yeah, I ate at the clan compound." He turned to sensei before asking, "So sensei, what mission are we going to be getting today?"

Raidou looked at us before smirking, "I took the opportunity to choose and apply for the mission already. Here is the mission outline." He passed me a scroll before continuing, "So from here on out Midori will be leading you guys while I hang back. I will only interfere if something goes wrong that I believe is outside your capabilities."

"Understood sensei," Muta replied in his monotonous voice, "We will fulfil this mission satisfactorily. Why? Because we are fully prepared for anything that may occur and Midori will prove to be a good leader." He finished by pushing up his circular sunglasses with his index finger. Sensei smiled at that before moving backwards to observe.

Tokuma chuckled before swinging his arm over my back, "Well esteemed leader-sama, why don't you open up that scroll and enlighten us peons about our coming mission?" I swatted his arm away before thanking Muta and unrolling the scroll.

 _Mission Rank: Middle C_

 _Mission Type: Bandit Elimination_

 _Objective: This is part of the Fire Daimyo's standing C-rank mission to eliminate bandit camps within Fire country. Routine ninja patrol in Fire country discovered a bandit camp approximately 20 miles from Ash Flower Village and 10 miles from the border of Fire country. They are estimated to have 15 men and have been attacking merchants travelling in and out of Fire country. Eliminate all bandits and destroy the remains of the camp as per standard mission protocol._

 _Time limit: 10 days_

 _Others: Presence of mssing-nins may be likely due to minor chakra discrepancies in the surroundings though it may simply be the presence of academy drop-outs in the camp._

"OK, this seems to be a standard bandit elimination mission and is within Fire country. There may be missing-nins present in the camp so we will have to stake out the camp before we attack. Pack enough rations, water and equipment for 10 days. I will bring medical supplies in case it is necessary. Bring your weapons and dress for forest camouflage. We meet at the gate in 2 hours. Double check everything." I looked at my teammates and they nodded resolutely.

I left and headed back home.

Back at home, I went to my cupboard and grabbed a number of pre-packed sealing scrolls and brought them to the table in the living room. I unsealed the first. Out came a variety of ration bars. During the second shinobi war, Tsunade-sama worked together with the Akimichi clan to create different type of ration bars for different situations. The first type was the standard ration bar that had all the necessary nutrients, proteins, fats, carbohydrates and dietary fibre for half a day. Shinobi used these when they could not get food out in the field, like when there is no time to hunt and cook a meal or when remaining undetected is paramount – like when they are escaping an enemy. The second type contained more natural sugars and less fibre and fat so as to give the shinobi a rush of energy if they are preparing for a coming battle and they are exhausted. By eating it and taking a chakra replenishing pill, rather than breaking down body fat and muscles to convert to emergency but necessary chakra, the pill converts the influx of calories from the bar into chakra for the shinobi to use. The last type of ration bar included numerous dried herbs to naturally boost the immune system as a stop-gap measure to increase the chances of survival of an injured ninja out in the field. In another scroll, I have a large amount of fresh water in case there is no lake or river nearby or if we need it for things like medical dressings. Next, I have packets of uncooked rice, herbs and spice, pots and some dried meat in case we get the opportunity to cook out which is likely considering we do not need to stay under the radar when travelling to and from the bandit camp. In the next scroll, I sealed a large number of medical supplies, from bandages to medicines. I also have a scroll with an entire arsenal of weapons. Finally, I sealed into the last scroll some spare clothing and possible disguises. I packed all of the scrolls into a hip pouch that I then wore, before adding a few empty scrolls just in case. After that, I wore a long sleeved jacket that was a mix between black and dark green. The dark green splotches served to break up the frame of my body so that I will be more easily hidden amongst the foliage and reduce the chances of someone spotting me.

"Are you leaving already?" I turned around and smiled at my mother who was sipping a cup of green tea.

"Yeah, I got a C-rank. It should take only 10 days though." I walked towards my mother before giving her a hug, "Take care alright?"

"You too, stay safe."

"Understood. I will see you soon then." I turned and left quickly.

 *****BREAK*****

A swirl of leaves later and I appeared at the Konoha ninja gate. Konoha has a variety of entrances and exits. The main gate is the one used by visitors with no cargo. The second gate is the one used by merchants. That gate has increased security, as more manpower is needed to check whatever the people are bringing in or out of Konoha. The final commonly known gate is the one used only by shinobi and no civilians may enter or leave through it. Hence, shinobi on escort missions are required to leave through either of the first two gates with their clients whereas shinobi on other missions like infiltration, assassination and bandit elimination do not have to go through a long customs procedure at the civilian gates.

I saw sensei hiding in the shadows while Muta waited in the open. It seemed like sensei is taking the no interference thing pretty seriously. Muta is dressed in the usual Aburame hooded jacket though his is dark green in colour. In addition, he has two thigh pouches and an olive green backpack. I can also see the indentations in his jacket sleeves where his tonfas are holstered. He looked like he has been waiting for quite a while.

"Muta, you packed for everything already?" I questioned.

He turned to look at me, his sunglasses glinting for a moment. "Yes, I already had ready packed scrolls at home so I only needed to double check. Why? Because my clan prides itself on always being prepared."

Just as I am about to reply, I heard Tokuma's voice. "Hey guys, I'm here! We can go already!" He appeared in his usual Hyuuga robe though it is dark grey in colour rather than the usual white. He has a thigh pouch and a hip pouch as well as a grey ruck sag slung over one of his shoulder.

"Very well. Team 3, move out!" We headed to the gate guards, showed our Shinobi Identification cards and I handed them the mission office release pass for them to check before they gave it back with a nod. As a group, we jumped up to the nearest tree and begun tree hopping towards our destination.

 *****BREAK*****

On the afternoon of the fifth day of the mission, we finally found the bandit camp. We had actually found traces of them on the morning of the third day but it took two and a half days to track them down to their camp. I decided to slow down our pace on the fourth day and we maintained silence throughout to reduce the possibility of any possible outlying bandits noticing us. We crouched on top of a few tree branches and looked at the camp. I could barely make it out without reinforcing my eyes with chakra due to the foliage. They were about 800 metres away in a somewhat small forest clearing. I looked at Tokuma and signalled for him to use his byakugan. Veins immediately appeared on the sides of his face as his byakugan activated and he stared into the distance.

The first sign of trouble came when he stiffened in shock. Immediately, his fingers moved in a series of gestures that made up Konoha's sign language while sensei, Muta and I observed. It took a while but we got the gist of it. Apparently, there are a total of 18 people in the camp, 2 of which had unlocked chakra reserves but were barely at academy student standard. The two main problems are that one of the bandits has high chunin level reserves, but also there are 3 people inside a locked cage. Even without the fact that there is a chunin level ninja waiting for us in the bandit camp, the presence of what is likely to be prisoners will make the mission exponentially tougher. Not only do we have to keep the hostages safe, which will require us to sacrifice manpower, we are limited in the ways we can attack the camp – for example, we cannot simply infiltrate the camp and poison their food because we will not know if they will also give the food to the prisoners. Furthermore, should we get them out first, they may make noises by accident that will alert the bandits and hinder our escape.

I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking through every possible course of action we can take to achieve our objective without the aid of our sensei. I made my decision and looked at my teammates before signalling for us to fall back by 1 kilometre so that we can discuss our plan.

"Troublesome...Considering our objective and the current situation, here is what we will do…"

* * *

 **Authors note**

 **To RebeliousOne: Thank you, and regarding the Uchiha massacre, it has not occurred yet. Itachi is 3 years older than Midori who is 3 years older than the Rookie 9 generation. As Itachi murders his clan when he is around 13 1/2 years old, the massacre will happen around 1 1/2 to 2 years from now. Also, considering that the people who are usually around the academy are only students and administrative Chunin, nobody there realises how good she is. As she interacts with more people, her abilities will become more widely known, though she will always try to hide whatever she can, and more often than not succeeds. As to whether Midori will eventually mentor Naruto, you will just have to wait and see. :)**

 **Thank you for reading.**


	7. Chapter 7

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 7**

Raidou Namiashi knows that he is a good shinobi. Obviously he is not as strong as monsters like the three members of the Sannin or the Yellow Flash or the numerous other S-rank shinobi out there. However, his lack of ability has also become his strength, ensuring that to survive, especially during the third Great Ninja War, he had to use his brains and all of his skill. Thanks to that, he managed to train his strategic thinking and abilities to a high enough level that he was once part of the group that guarded the Yondaime Hokage, and along with Genma and Iwashi was taught a bastardised version of the Flying Thunder God technique.

Initially, when he was assigned a team by the Hokage, he was naturally hesitant. Most Jounin do not want to teach. It is merely a fact of life. Nobody wants to be entrusted with a group of rookies who you have to look out for out in the field. Not to mention being unable to do high ranking missions for more money or being able to come and go as you please. Instead, you have to take care of a bunch of brats who, for the most part, think that being a ninja is some sort of glorious occupation and that once they leave the academy they will be off to save princesses or some shit like that. Unfortunately, it is part of the employment contact that every ninja has to sign that states that the Hokage is able to force Jounin to take on genin teams.

Of course they have the right to reject them, which is what the Jounin sensei test is all about, but you have to give a good reason as to why the team could not make it.

Raidou did not know whether he was lucky or not. On one hand, his genin team had passed his test with flying colours, making him have to take on a bunch of brats. On the other hand, the team could be way worse. The group of Hyuuga, Aburame and Nara worked extremely well together. Initially, he felt it was weird that they naturally deferred to Midori as the leader amongst the three of them considering her age. He had thought that he will need to deal with bouts of jealousy. Instead, the Aburame had, based on logic and observation, concluded that Midori is the best suited to lead them, while the Hyuuga was very relaxed considering his clan nature.

He knew he lucked out with the three ninja forming his team. Not only could they work well together, they were smart and always paid attention to his lessons. He normally would not give them a test like this one, but he genuinely believed that they could do well. When they found out the presence of a possibly high Chunin ninja, he initially wanted to take over to deal with the threat. However, he quelled his instinct and stayed his hand. It would not be a test if they could not deal with the unexpected after all.

 *****BREAK*****

Hyuuga Tokuma is a member of the Branch House of the Hyuuga clan. He may have the best byakugan in his generation currently but that did not prevent the Caged Bird seal from being placed on him. He is well aware of the power the Main House has over him but from a young age, he had already decided that since he cannot do anything about it, he might as well live his llife to the fullest.

Besides, despite the fact that the Branch House of the Hyuuga has to have the seal placed on them, they still had rights. Should any Main House member attempt to abuse the seal, a council will decide their punishment, most often it is being forced to join the Branch House. In fact other than the first time the seal was put on him, nobody had used the seal on him.

When he first met his teammates and his sensei, he felt they were all way too serious. Thus, he made it his role to joke around a little to lighten the mood and remind them to relax at times. This of course did not mean he did not know when to be serious. Since the start of this C rank mission, he had stayed calm and collected until he checked out the bandit camp and was shocked for a moment.

However, he knew that together with his team, they could succeed.

As Midori briefed them, his mood settled. He had faith in Midori after all. Despite her age, she was one of the smartest people he knew. The Nara clan were noted by his clan members as generally having a high level of intelligence and would probably incite fear amongst the Elemental Nations if not for their lazy behaviour. However, knowing they are smart and seeing it in action was a totally different thing. He briefly wondered how scary Midori Nara will be in the future considering how hard she trained contrary to usual Naras. He quickly shelved away that thought with a shudder; it is way too frightening to think about.

 *****BREAK*****

Aburame Muta meditated while communing with the kikaichu constantly flying in and out of his body. It is the sixth day since the start of the mission and since they had left Konoha. He, Tokuma and Midori have been staking out the bandit camp. They split the days into four hour time slots. At any one moment, two of them will be on watch while one will be sleeping. After the first four hours, another one of them will rest while the previously resting one will join the other in keeping watch. This not only gave them sufficient rest, but also allowed them to find out the weak spots of the camp and how often the bandits switched out their sentries.

They already planned to take the stealth route to reduce the number of possible casualties. They planned to attack early in the morning of the seventh day, at about 1 am to 2 am. This ensured that the sentries are not at optimal condition and their reactions will be dulled, so they will not be able to sound an alarm in time. At the same time, the bonfire they build in the middle of the camp will be very weak as most of the bandits will already be asleep and will not be tending the fire. This reduces their visibility and prevents shadows from possibly forming and alerting any bandit that might not be asleep yet. At the same time, the hostages will also likely be asleep and will not be awake to see them in action and possibly scream, which will alert the bandits.

After Midori had told them the basic outline of the plan, he found it logical and believed it has a high chance of working, especially considering the bandits were not very vigilant. The main real threat is of course the chunin, which Tokuma will possibly aid Midori in taking down. Hopefully, they can take him down while he is still asleep, but if he is awake, they will try to take him down together.

The reason why he cannot join them in taking him down is due to the fact that his fighting capability will be reduced due to his current job. His kikaichu were not only currently scouting out the camp, but they were also slowly sucking out some of the bandits' chakra, including those with no unlocked chakra network. This is so that they will be slowly feeling more and more tired. While they could not use chakra, it stills sustains their life. With a reduced amount, they will not be able to concentrate as well and will fall into a deeper sleep as night comes. Hopefully the chunin and failed academy students will be weakened as well.

Due to him sucking out their chakra, it is likely that by the time of the attack, he will not be able to continue using his kikaichu or risk them falling from chakra overdose, so he will have to rely on taijutsu and his weapons. His job will thus be to kill as many civilian bandits as possible before guarding the hostages should a fight break out.

Raidou sensei will of course be on standby, but no one wanted him to have to intervene.

 *****BREAK*****

The silence of the early morning is stifling. There are only brief intermissions of sound due to the sentries moving in place, the soft hooting of the owls, and the flapping of bats' wings as they move from tree to tree. The crackling sound of the main fire pit has long ceased and mere embers lay in its place. There are two pairs of guards, one facing North and the other facing South. Each pair shared a standing torch for visibility. They switched out every two hours. Hence, we began our attack an hour after a guard change. This lets the guards relax and decrease their vigilance, while giving us sufficient time to complete our mission without any bandits being awake in preparation for their shift.

Muta and Tokuma are going to take out the North side guards while I take out the South. To prevent being seen and causing an alarm to sound, the plan is for Muta to use already planted kikaichu to suck out the rest of the guards chakra while Tokuma grab them from behind to prevent them making a sound when falling. Considering I do not have the benefit of having an Aburame partner, I had to make do. I shot out a flurry of senbon aimed at lethal spots on their body. I chose to use senbons as with such low lighting, they were not visible and would also not make a sound due to displacement of air compared to a kunai or shurikens.

When the two guards started slumping to the ground, I dashed in and grabbed them before gently setting them on the ground. I blew out the flame from the standing torch and waited for a moment to let my eyes get used to the sudden darkness. I then rushed off to the various tents to start my work, trusting Muta and Tokuma to do the same from the other end.

I have almost cleared out my side of the bandits, finishing them of with either a kunai through their skull or heart depending on their sleeping position. When I reached the last tent of my side, I could sense it was the chunin level ninja that was left. Before, I could register that he was awake, he had thrown the blanket it my face with a shout and rushed me with a sword.

It seems like Tokuma and Muta were also finished because I could sense Muta with the hostages and Tokuma fighting a single opponent. The fight had woken up the chunin ninja rushing towards me. He had on a slashed Kumo headband, and was already channelling lightning natured chakra down his short blade.

"Shit…" Because of the fact that he was channelling electricity, I could not match him blade to blade as I had not yet learnt wind manipulation. If I used water, I would probably get shocked while an earth natured blade would be at the elemental disadvantage and allow him to easily cut through.

I quickly dodged his rapid swings as I tried to tire him out before slowly positioning his tent between us. I threw a kunai with an exploding tag at him before ducking down behind his tent. It resulted in a minor explosion which did not hurt him much since he had blocked with his sword and had jumped backwards to diffuse the force of the exploding tag.

He quickly rushed towards me in a shunshin before shoving his lightning sheathed blade all the way through my gut. His face showed an expression of gory delight as my body slumped forward, hugging him in the process. It soon turned into horror as the body covering his blade melted into thick mud that was weighing on him just as he felt something pierce him from behind, severing the connection between his skull and his spinal column. He blacked out.

I moved out of the way as his body slumped onto the ground from the weight of the mud construct. I was glad that I could put in place a combo move that I had thought up of and practiced at home. First, I placed a minor genjutsu that subtly caused him to focus more on the opponent in front of him and ignore his surroundings, before I cause a minor distraction – which in this case is an exploding tag – that will temporarily block his line of sight. While I am hidden, I do a quick Mud Clone jutsu before using the Hiding like a Mole Technique and the Underground Projection Fish Technique to position myself. The minor genjutsu will cause him to overly focus on the clone and rush him in close combat before allowing the mud clone to temporarily trap him in the mud. From there, I can either use the Double Suicide Decapitation to trap the enemy in the ground or simply jump out of the ground and strike from his blind spot in the back like I just did.

I quickly moved about the camp, ensuring that all the bandits are dead. Tokuma had by then finished off his opponent with a quick Jyuuken strike at his heart, causing instant cardiac arrest and death. Muta had freed the three hostages when I gave him the all clear signal and the three dishevelled women came to us with thanks. I left them with Muta and signalled for them to leave the camp site.

Tokuma and I then began to clear the dead bandits of whatever valuables and weapons they have. It is part of Konoha policy after all as the weapons could be melted down and forged into kunai or shuriken and then sold. After sealing whatever was valuable and the bandits' weapons into two different scrolls, I sealed the body of the dead Kumo missing-nin into another scroll. I could have decapitated him and used a smaller storage scroll but it might give the autopsy branch of Konoha's hospital an idea of Kumo's shinobi techniques. After they paid me if there is a bounty, however meagre, on his head that is.

After that, we moved all the corpses and whatever was left of the camp into a central location. I flipped through a few hand signs before slamming my hands onto the ground and they started sinking into the earth. I had used the Burial Technique which is a recommended ninjutsu as under Konoha's policy; we have to clear out the area of any signs of the camp. The Burial Technique is a progression from the Hiding like a Mole technique as both manipulates the ground into a soft sand like texture that you can sink objects and bodies through. If I did not know the Burial Technique, I would have to cover them in a strong acid that can be bought at any shinobi store. The acid will slowly melt through, leaving barren land in its wake. However it takes quite a long time and can be quite smelly which might attract the attention of other ninjas which is why the Burial technique is recommended. In addition the acid is also rather expensive and there is no need to waste the money that can be better used elsewhere.

After ensuring that everything is underground, I turned and went over to where Muta and the three women were, with Tokuma on my heels. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the women.

* * *

 **Authors note**

 **To RebeliousOne: You are welcome. Itachi will not be her Anbu captain unfortunately. Not sure as to how to go about writing the Chunin Exams yet though. But it will happen before the Uchiha Massacre. Probably.**

 **To Viva01: Thank you :) I initially wanted Midori to go about with more humour but I felt that with her emotional maturity and training from her previous life, along with how old she feels compared to her peers, causes her to be as serious as possible.**

 **To RadioPoisoning: Thanks, I wanted to read a Naruto insert story where the character tries as hard as possible rather than just being a whiny shit or being scared of becoming a Mary Sue, which is why I wrote this story. I always felt that Shikamaru trapped Hidan and Kakuzu too easily in the story considering Kakuzu is supposed to have years of experience since he supposedly fought the Shodaime Hokage. But then again, I am not the one who wrote Naruto so I cannot complain. Midori will likely not mentor Naruto directly, like a master-apprentice relationship...but she will probably** **affect Naruto in the future.**

 **To M.L: Haha, I am already wondering to myself what will happen when either Inoichi or Ino tries to psychoanalyse Midori. Yeah, I can just imagine Naruto trying to prank her and Midori beating the ever-loving crap out of him. And Midori is way too pragmatic and her hands too stained in blood for her to see things from Naruto's idealistic point of view. If anything, Midori will probably affect him more than he affects her should they ever meet.**

 **Thank you for reading.**


	8. Chapter 8

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 8**

"Hey Shika-chan! I'm back! Where is kaa-chan?" I knocked at his stomach with the tip of my foot. He was being a lazy slob again, lying on his back in front of his house with his hands behind his head and one leg crossed over the other. In the end, the three women that we had rescued were taken from the nearby Ash Flower village and we simply brought them back and got the village leader to write up a statement for the successive retrieval of the three women. After that, we simply made our way back to Konoha. We barely made it back in time for our deadline though, due to the fact that we could not travel as fast when escorting the women back to their village. That was why we had initially gotten a written statement of the rescue – so that we would have a legitimate reason should we not reach back Konoha within the ten day duration of the mission. We could also have asked for mission pay from Ash Flower village since we technically completed a "Search and Rescue" mission for them, but we decided that the hostage situation aligned with our objectives enough that we did it for free. This also has the helpful benefit of increasing our reputation with not just the villages but also with the Fire Daimyo, which means more missions get sent Konoha's way.

Normally, after finishing a C or D ranked mission, we will report to an administrative Chunin staff. For B rank missions and above, debriefings and reports were done by administrative Jounin who had retired from the field due to age, injuries or various other reasons. Considering that our C rank mission had unforeseen challenges, we had to report to the Jounin on duty instead of the Chunin. After being debriefed by the Jounin in charge, and the collection of mission pay, we headed to the Konoha quartermaster. He weighed out the metal and valuables we had collected from the bandit camp before giving us a cut of the value. This amount is so that ninjas will remember to help collect the scrap metal out in the field rather than just leave them lying all over the place when Konoha can put them to good use.

After that, we headed to our team's usual training ground and Raidou-sensei went through how we did on the mission and what could be improved. The After Action Review highlighted to me the need to learn some wind element manipulation and I resolved to set aside some time a day to do so. Both Tokuma and Muta can also benefit from more elemental ninjutsu which will greatly diversify their repertoire and allow us to have more strategies to use when planning an attack. Overall though, we did pretty well for a first mission without the blatant supervision of Raidou-sensei.

After he had dismissed us, I headed to the bounty station in the Hokage tower to turn in the corpse of the missing-nin I fought. The way bounties are handled in Konoha is special. By being the one to capture the bounty, I got a solid 50% of how much the bounty is worth. Konoha got a good 25% as a cut and it goes into the Konoha treasury which determines our annual budget. A 15% cut is given to the middleman who Konoha hires to turn in the bounty at official bounty stations while the last 10% is kept by the bounty station for their work. For example, if you turn in a regular bounty at a bounty station yourself, you get 90% of how much a bounty is worth and 10% goes to the bounty station. However, it is illegal for Konoha ninjas to turn in bounties at places other than in Konoha as it helps our funding a lot. Furthermore, this prevents people from knowing who turned in the bounty and prevents missing-nin and other shinobi villages from realising who killed who and getting a better estimate of a ninja's strength and abilities. By going through a middleman, this also prevents people from knowing that it is Konoha cashing in on the bounties and targeting us in revenge or something. Regardless, after collecting my cut, I headed back home to find my mother to assure her that yes, I am alive and unharmed.

"Ughh…must you do that?" Shikamaru twitched as my feet met his stomach again. He opened his eyes and faced me with a petulant glare, "She is at the hospital, a team got heavy injuries and there aren't enough doctors on duty so she got called in as well. You should go help her…and let me get back to snoozing evil witch…"

I felt my left eye twitching. He's been calling me that ever since I have taken to trying to break him out of his lazy ass behaviour. Honestly, it is going to get him killed one day if he does not buck up and practice more. "Tch, fine, lazy arse, you are lucky kaa-chan probably could use my help now or I would put you through the obstacle course again." I muttered before leaving in a shunshin and purposefully caused a bunch of leaves fluttering onto his face which left him spluttering.

"Evil witch…"

 *****BREAK*****

15 year old Shisui Uchiha was not expecting this disaster when he had left on his mission with three chunin under his command two weeks ago. They were guarding a delegation from Takigakure no Sato who were returning after a meeting in Konoha. It was only a high B rank mission, nothing he has not done before. However, a day from reaching Takigakure no Sato, they were attacked by a missing-nin. Judging by his slashed headband, he was originally from Takigakure no Sato.

They decided to send the delegation off first with their standard Taki shinobi guards as the Konoha escort started to try and fight off the monster. There was no question as to whether his abilities are monstrous as four masks left his body from the back and black threads wove them into various shapes giving them bodies. As he got into a fast paced taijutsu fight with the main body, the three chunin members held off the four masked beasts that were launching collaboration elemental ninjutsu at them like it was going out of style. How he had the chakra reserves to launch A and B rank ninjutsus like they were nothing Shisui had no idea.

As he fought the main body, he found that his speed greatly surpassed the missing-nin and he managed to land a lot of hits on him. However, none of his hits were actually doing anything and his opponent was physically way stronger then he considering his missed punches managed to break trees easily. Even when he used his tanto to pierce him, the tanto broke instead when it reached his skin. There was not even a scratch. As he examined his opponent closer with his sharingan, he saw that his opponent's body was covered in an earthy brown chakra that showed he was using a chakra channeling technique to make his body tougher than steel by circulating earth natured chakra.

"You are good. What's your name?"

"Kakuzu. You…you are _Shunshin no Shisui_ …you are worth 20 million on the black market. I am gonna take your head for letting my target escape."

He rushed forward as Shisui threw away his broken tanto and grabbed two kunai in a dual handed reverse grip. Shisui thanked every deity for ensuring he was in the Uchiha clan as his sharingan was responsible for him preventing a hole being made through his chest. He squatted under a punch before rolling to the side when Kakuzu kicked at him from the side. He kept dodging as much as he can while waiting for his opportunity.

As his opponent just finished a combo of kicks and punches, he used a shunshin to the right and then back to create an afterimage that his opponent attacked. At the moment his left side was open, he ducked under the arm from the side, channelled lightning chakra through the blade and slammed it into the left where his heart is. He knew he was lucky to have the elemental advantage over Kakuzu or he might have had to use his Mangekyo Sharingan to break through his opponent's defences.

Kakuzu fell to the ground dead to the world and he quickly turned to help his teammates. One of them was severely burnt while another had a missing arm. The other was holding off the black thread constructs while limping and was about to be overwhelmed. He quickly jumped in to try and fight them off. He had thought with their controller dead, they would have stopped working but that was not to be. He was busy fending off three of the constructs when he realised there should be four.

As he turned to where Kakuzu's body should be, he saw him slowly stumbling up to a standing position while a pile of black threads lay in a heap beside him. "I'll kill you…" He heard a soft voice. Shisui quickly analysed the situation and rather than freak out over a dead man coming back to life like he want to, he decided to escape considering that trying to fight off a monster like that while having to protect his teammates was a pretty insurmountable task. He quickly made a shadow clone with his dwindling reserves and grabbed the teammate who was missing an arm and in shock and assisted the other limping teammate before shunshining off. His shadow clone used a fireman carry to carry his burnt teammate and followed after him.

Even with his ridiculously low chakra reserves, he did not stop. There was no way he wanted to have to fight Kakuzu again, and his teammates needed immediate medical treatment. His chakra reserves were pretty much non-existent when he reached Konoha's gates and he stumbled in in a daze. As h slowly fell to his knees in exhaustion, he felt his shadow clone dispel and heard his only conscious teammate shout for help. In front of him were some masked shinobi – _ANBU his mind supplied him_ – who grabbed him before his eyes closed and he drifted off into darkness.

 *****BREAK*****

When I reached the hospital, I was directed by my mother to help out one of the patients who had severe chakra exhaustion. My mother was working on a shinobi who seemed to have second to third degree burns over majority of his body and she was trying to stabilise him. I hurried to the appropriate hospital room with a bag of standard medical supplies. Contrary to what a lot of shinobi think, chakra exhaustion really was dangerous. Severe chakra exhaustion could kill even when the ninjas were receiving medical attention at the hospital. This occurs because of the chakra withdrawal that might cause the patient to go into shock. At times, the ninjas' bodies even just give up and stop producing chakra, resulting in a slow and prolonged death.

As I opened the door, I saw a sleeping ninja lying on the plain white sheets of the hospital bed. He was already changed by the nurses into a dull hospital gown and an intravenous drip was attached to his arm. He had short, unkempt, black hair and looked pretty pale. Looking at the clipboard at the end of the bed, I read through the relevant details while my soon to be patient snored away.

I stood at the side of the bed of the patient – Shisui Uchiha the form on the clipboard had said – and placed my two palms over the first and last gate of his chakra circulatory system after performing the hand seals for a diagnosing jutsu. Shisui had pushed his chakra system extremely hard and I can feel his circulatory system had many miniature tears that should be addressed as soon as possible. He had already been given the maximum safe amount of chakra replenishing medicine when he was first brought into the hospital but his chakra reserves were still low and I could not give him more.

After that, I used the all-purpose mystical palm technique to fill my hands with medical chakra and slowly set about to fix any ruptures and massage his chakra coils to simulate recovery. It is something that will take a long time to fix considering how much stress he put his coils through, not even considering that he is not in good physical condition since he is malnourished and dehydrated along with suffering from physical exhaustion. I decided to focus on the more important portions first and tried to fix any tears closest to the eight gates of his chakra circulatory system.

After about four hours of constant chakra exertion, I determined that there were no tears left in his chakra coils that needed to be immediately addressed. Any more medical chakra pumped into his body and he might overdose on the foreign chakra in his system. I stopped and noted down his condition and treatment in the patient status form on the clipboard before putting it back at the end of his bed and left the room. I will have to return tomorrow to continue with the rest of his treatment. As I was closing his room door, a horse masked shinobi landed in front of me.

"Nara-san, Hokage-sama enquires whether the patient is stable enough to give a report." His monotonous voice rang out.

"Ahh, yes. I will have to medically wake him up and stay on hand if anything happens though. Is Hokage-sama coming now?" I answered after thinking it over. "As long as Uchiha-san does not use any chakra or exerts himself, he should be fine."

"Yes. You may wake him up. Hokage-sama will arrive shortly." With that, he left in a blur of motion.

I re-entered the room and went back to Shisui with a sigh. Here I wanted to finally go back and rest, and yet I got dragged into a pretty long medical treatment and still need to go through my patient giving a report to the Hokage. I sent a burst of medical chakra directly into his brain with a jutsu designed to slowly wake an unconscious person up until they are fully alert and not suffering from any lingering drowsiness and lethargy.

As he slowly fumbled out of dreamland, the door opened and the Hokage walked in with two ANBU guards – one of which is Horse from earlier and the other seemed to be a bird of some sort – and a chunin aide. "Good evening, Hokage-sama. The patient is awake and will soon be fully conscious." I stood up and bowed to the Hokage before moving to the other side of the bed.

Hearing this, Shisui immediately shook himself awake before shifting himself to an upright sitting position while trying to do some sort of awkward half bow as he simultaneously turned to the side to face the Hokage. "Hokage-sama! Sorry for not reporting earlier!" His voice rushed out in embarrassment.

"At ease Midori-chan, Shisui-kun." He gave me a small glare since my shoulders were still shifting in amusement as I saw my patient perform his awkward manoeuvre before continuing, "Shisui-kun I need you to fill in the gaps since you personally fought the missing-nin and Tamaki-kun could only feel us in on some of his abilities."

"Yes Hokage-sama, he is from Takigakure no Sato and his name is Kakuzu. He –"

However, the Hokage interrupted him. "Are you sure his name is Kakuzu?"

"Yes. Why"

"He shouldn't even be alive right now, much less still be able to beat you and three chunin like it is nothing. He left the Hidden Waterfall Village after a failed assassination attempt on the Shodaime Hokage. He stole the knowledge on how to use a secret technique and killed the village elders in Taki at the time…and took their hearts." The Hokage answered while his brow furrowed in thought.

"He is extremely strong; he could not only extend his arm while it is still connected to his body via numerous black threads, he seems to be able to use all five chakra natures and has extremely high chakra reserves. At the start of the battle, he sent four thread-like beasts with masks as faces at us. They were initially attached to his back. While my teammates stalled them, I fought Kakuzu in a taijutsu battle. His constructs were able to launch numerous fire, wind, water and lightning jutsu in collaboration with ease. Meanwhile, the main body used some sort of earth natured body enhancement technique to strengthen his skin and durability. While I was much faster than him, my attacks could not do much damage and my tanto even broke when it hit him. I only managed to kill him with a lightning infused kunai through the heart after creating an opening." He hesitated before continuing, "Unfortunately, he came back to life, which is when I decided to cut our losses and flee since he is not part of our mission objective anyway."

"Is it really possible for an immortal ninja to exist? What did you notice about how he came back to life?" The Hokage questioned.

"I didn't see it fully but one of his threads constructs ended up dying after he came back to life. If that is true, that means that the next time we see him, we will have to kill him four more times before he stays dead."

"Midori-chan I see you have something to say." The Hokage must have seen my eyes open minutely in shock and realisation when I was mulling over the conversation.

"What if, hypothetically, he needs another ninja's heart to form his constructs? After all, why did he steal the hearts from the village elders in Taki anyway? This could also explain how he can use all five chakra natures as proficiently as you are describing since all he needs to do is to find hearts belonging to ninjas with different chakra natures to assimilate. If I am right, this means that the next time you face him, you will have to kill him five times not four." I said in contemplation. "If I am right that is."

The room fell silent as we thought about the ramifications of a shinobi with such a crazy ability. What I did not mention but still wondered in my mind – and that I believe the Hokage was also thinking about – is whether Kakuzu can somehow become even more terrifying…by taking the heart of a kekkei genkai (bloodline limit) user for instance.

* * *

 **Authors note**

 **To Winter's Folly: The guys are wearing solid colour simply because they do not know any better and even though Midori says it will help their stealth, they do not rely a lot on stealth and see it as something that is good to have but not critical on most missions (which is technically true for a lot of missions in the Naruto world) and they are not going to spend so much money just to buy more clothes.**

 **To Viva01: Thanks, she's such a troll because to her they are just little kids to her and she just likes messing with them without anyone realising why - her own personal joke. The Hyuuga incident has already occurred when Hinata was three and Midori was six. There was no change to it as Midori was too young and did not even know it was happening until it was over and the rest of Konoha heard the news.**

 **To RebeliousOne, RadioPoisoning, RSRK-Guy and all the other previous reviewers: Thanks for reading and reviewing.**

 **The end.**


	9. Chapter 9

**I OWN NOTHING EXCEPT MY OC**

 **Chapter 9**

I stared at the leather-bound notebook in front of me. It had a dark brown cover and looked remarkably ordinary. Nothing seemed out of place about it, as if it were just a random journal. However, when I opened it, pictures of various men and women stared back at me, a single picture upon each page, with numerous scribbles under each page.

When I had first learnt about the bingo book in this world, I had quickly managed to appropriate one for my own use. The bingo book from Fire country contains all the information about missing-nin around the Elemental Nations, as well as notable shinobi and kunoichi from other countries. I had collated the information into my own book, as well as whatever rumours and hearsay I could gather about these ninjas in case I met them out in the field. I then formed various strategies to take down each one of them, keeping in mind their strengths and weaknesses, like their stamina, elemental affinities, physical build and intelligence et cetera. Of course, all these were written in code, and also in a second notebook that I kept hidden in case I misplaced it.

I had just finished collating the new information on Kakuzu that I had learnt in the discussion with Shisui Uchiha and the Hokage. Frankly, his ability was not only disturbing, but also ridiculously overpowered. Not only does it allow him to obtain the elemental affinities of others, and use threads with the strength of steel, the most important ability is the extension of his natural lifespan. Disregarding the fact that we have to kill him five times to ensure he is dead, the fact remains that he is extremely old and thus has accumulated a great deal of battle experience. This sole fact means that he will likely be prepared for any usual forms of attack and only an attack of overwhelming strength or something he has never seen before would surprise him.

I leaned back, closed my eyes and let out a sigh. I still could not get over the concept of myself reincarnating into a different world. A world that made fun of ninjas by making them out to be massively overpowered warriors that fought in the open, often one on one, with attacks that could bend the elements. At the apex of all these stood the S-class monsters. I could not knowingly call them ninjas anymore, for they had clawed their way up over mountains of bodies, and rivers of blood to stand at the top of the shinobi realm. Each one was so massively difficult to injure, much less kill, that they could no longer be called human. They had abilities that normal ninjas could not fathom – teleportation, invulnerability, summoning beasts larger than the Hokage Mountain were just some of them. In the current generation though, there is a drop in ninjas becoming recognised in S-rank.

After the end of the third ninja war, less ninjas died, allowing good, well trained ninjas to remain. This meant there was an increase in highly trained ninjas. However, for all their abilities, it is also through this lack of war and conflict that caused many of them to stagnate. Most of them still trained regularly and kept their skills sharp, but they lacked the edge, the sharpness and _the desperation_ that made strong ninja break through the barrier and transcend to the top to become a legend. They lacked the will power to try new things and create their path to success. Compare Minato Namikaze and Kakashi Hatake for example. The Yondaime was born in a time of war and developed his skills through a ridiculous amount of conflict and battle, causing him to develop his abilities to their peak and constantly invent new techniques that launched him into worldwide renown. On the other hand, Kakashi, who was also lauded as a prodigy, developed at a similar speed, but once the third war ended, he started to stagnate. His only original technique was created during the war, and after that, he only relied on his Sharingan for new techniques. Theoretically, his sharingan coupled with his genius should have made him an s-rank by now, but without the war, he lacked the drive to continuously improve at the same rate, leaving him as an extremely strong A-rank ninja in the end.

But what I wanted, what I desperately needed to be, is to be an S-rank. With my skills, I knew I could kill most people. However, unlike in my previous world, I could no longer just rely on them, I will have to grow so overwhelmingly strong that when ambush and diversionary techniques do not work, I can still use devastating attacks to complete my mission. After all, that was the creed of shinobi.

 *****BREAK*****

The sun was peeking out and barely colouring the sky a rosy hue when Shisui left the hospital. He was eager to stretch his legs and get back to training. After the defeat, _and there was no doubt it was a defeat for him_ , by Kakuzu, who was sure to come back stronger and tougher, he had an unquenchable need to get better and improve himself.

At the moment though, he was free from the shackles and the tyrannical bed site manner of the little nurse. She was a devil in disguise, preventing him from leaving through the hospital window, which was how he usually escaped from the oppressive place, by placing a multitude of explosive tags around it, and shock tags on the door. He really wanted to strangle whoever either taught her seals or told her about them and let her self-study. It was a plain abuse of authority, he thought with a mini pout.

"Shisui," He looked up to see his best friend standing across him, "You look better than the last time I saw you." Itachi may have been a few years younger than him, but he was always the more mature of the two, and he always had a way of speaking that made him feel older – not in terms of years, but rather in experience. There was an underlying tone that made you straighten your back and listen, even with his soft voice. Strangely, it reminded him of the devil girl – Midori, he remembered – and that made him start to compare the two even further.

From what he knew, she graduated from the academy early, just like Itachi, though she was not recognised as a genius unlike Itachi. In contrast, her graduation was considered a fluke and quite a few Academy teachers had petitioned to the Hokage to make her continue to attend the economy to no avail. On the other hand, from what he saw and observed, her medical skills were quite high – though she only has a Class C medical license – she was able to make pretty good quality seals, she was extremely stealthy considering she was able to sneak up on him a few times in his stay at the hospital and she had good deductive abilities from their conversation with the Hokage. Additionally, while he could not see enough of her body to determine how hard she physically trains, her walk and posture had a lethality and contained sharpness to it – like a sharp tanto wrapped in a velvet cloth – that he saw only when he used his sharingan around her. To have such control of your body was an extreme feat and only masters of taijutsus tend to give off such mastery of body.

He concentrated back on Itachi, "Hnn, getting into bad shape is to be expected when fighting sch a powerful opponent after all…at least I came back in one piece." The same can't be said for the rest of his squad members – they would all live, but more often than not, most ninja that gravely injured had to quit the work force and either get stuck doing administrative duties or find a civilian job. "How's Sasuke been?"

"The same…we should go back to the compound. My father is waiting for your report." Itachi replied, his face not shifting at all, his impassive gaze analyzing Shisui's body for any remaining wounds.

"Hnn, very well, let's go."

 *****BREAK*****

An aging man in with a large white hat stood on top of the Hokage's mountain. He enjoyed the panoramic view for a moment, taking in the sunrise and the village waking up as shopkeepers started opening their shops for the days business and young civilian children and shinobi-to-be milled around the roads on their way to their respective schools. He noticed the hidden ANBU members that were keeping a watchful eye on the population, the steady, slightly arrogant gait of the Uchiha Military Police members as they eyed the crowd for any issues, and he noticed the slight signs left behind by the small bodies of Danzo's Root members as they went about looking and hearing for any information that might be interesting.

The recent fight between Shisui's team and Kakuzu was just one of the many weird occurrences lately, and he could sense a changing wind. Soon, there would be a storm engulfing the Elemental Nations. He could only hope Konoha would be ready for it.

Pulling his hat further down to cover his eyes, he disappeared with the breeze.

 *****BREAK*****

Tokuma stared at Midori in fascination. His byakugan was shown on his face as veins protruded around his milky eyes. He had never seen a style of chakra training so ridiculous. She had got him to place 20 senbon on various tenketsus using their needle point. Not only was she keeping them upright and in place, she was coiling a chakra string – no, a thread – around each one, through each tenketsu. Normally only puppeteers used chakra strings and even then, they used it from their hands. The fact that she was using it from twenty different parts on her body, none of which are her hands, was mind-blowing. Granted she was not having much success yet, and he could only see the faintest head of chakra thread coming from 4 of her tenketsu, but it was already a sign of her future prowess.

At the corner of the training grounds, he saw Muta practicing his use of kikaichu in various formations for capturing and tracking, along with a steel web formed by a few wires coiling around his fingers. It was a style of combat he picked up from Midori, and while he was nowhere near proficient in them, he was working hard at it. Already, the synergy between the wires and his kikaichu was shining through and Tokuma could see the potential use in making more effective on the spot traps.

While he was observing his friends, he was not slacking, he was taking the time to go through an obstacle course designed by Namiashi-sensei to train his agility and increase his awareness, while at the same time teaching his mind to multitask since he was keeping an eye on both Muta and Midori even while avoiding the numerous traps. For a Hyuuga, strength was unimportant, precision and agility was. With a single touch of their fingers, they could immobilize or cripple a person, so having great strength was not useless per say, but rather, it does not add as much value as training his agility.

Rolling on the floor to dodge a crossbow bolt, he saw Midori's eyes flash open; Muta's deft flicks of his fingers as he recoiled the wires around his hand; and a flurry of leaves appearing in the middle of the training ground as his sensei appeared.

"All of you gather. I have news."

* * *

 **Author's Note**

 **Thank you all for reviewing, I am sorry for being MIA for such a long period of time. I have been busy with the start of University and trying to cope with the hectic lifestyle. Hope you enjoy this chapter, tell me what you think and how I can improve!**

 **The end.**


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